Fight or Flight?

It happens to be a legit medical term; “fight, or flight”. When you are under stress or some sort of attack the body, the brain, the nerves are all faced with the reaction to either fight or take flight. And how does the body show this uncertainty to either run for the hills or throat punch your attacker? Well, that’s an easy one; you blush. When you don’t know whether to run or to stay put, your body, brain and nerves work furiously to decide how to protect yourself; and there it is, possibly the biggest problem of them all.

When it comes to blushing I am an expert. Not at avoiding it, no, at being prize in portraying that rosy glow. Well for me, it’s more like a giant beacon of red, but a more feminine and demure glow is how I wish to portray myself. I have attempted to find ways of avoiding this blushing problem that I have somehow contracted in my years through puberty and a generally painful progression into society. I have narrowed it down to a few sources of the problem.

Firstly, they (and by they I mean “the internet”) suggest that blushing can often be exacerbated by a lack of self-confidence. Secondly, that the body’s response to the “fight or flight” complex is easily triggered, apparently it is a medical condition; and thirdly, clumped together is emotional stress, social anxiety and being love struck.  As far as I’m concerned I think my levels of self-confidence are we they should be, not overly self-confident in which people find it painful to be around me, and not lacking self-confidence to the point where I find it painful to be around myself. More importantly, I’m 90% sure I don’t suffer from a scary medical condition with an unattractive name. I’m just a serial blusher due to reason three, emotional stress, social anxiety and being love struck.

Because everyone has blushed at some stage in their lives I feel eyes rolling about my blushing complex. In which case you may roll away, because it may not be a medical condition but it is turning out to be problematic in my life. Social anxiety, otherwise known as “awkward moments”, fly around Grahamstown (and life in general) like it is going out of fashion. What is important to note here is that I find myself in awkward situations far too often; and most of them develop from the very similar blush inducing problem, being love struck. I’m not proud, but because I harbor a fear of one day blushing to my death, I have become rather apt at avoiding said awkward moments. For example I once hid behind a car to avoid social interaction with a once struck upon love. It wasn’t successful, but the attempt was made.

I realise that I’m going about this the wrong way, that indeed flight is not the best option in tackling the attack of social anxiety. But faced with the prospect of looking like a stop street when shoved into an emotionally distressing situation I struggle to see a way out of this. I’m pretty certain that I’m not the only serial blusher out there. Everyone goes trough a bout of awkward moments that you’d just rather avoid, because you know very well that the moment the social anxiety hits that face of yours is going show every uncomfortable thought you have in the most subtle colour of them all, blood red.

Coming to terms with my blushing problem has given me two options. I can either, continue in flight mode and avoid those awkward moments altogether and live a blush free and happy life. Or, I can change over into fight mode, and walk head on into those awkward moments filled with embarrassment, social anxiety, and emotional stress and just hope like hell my face doesn’t react differently.